The meanings given to gender in studies on multimodal rehabilitation for patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain: a literature reviewShow others and affiliations
2016 (English)In: Disability and Rehabilitation, ISSN 0963-8288, E-ISSN 1464-5165, Vol. 38, no 23, p. 2255-2270Article, review/survey (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to assess and describe the meanings given to "gender" in scientific publications that evaluate multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary or multimodal rehabilitation for patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain.
Method: A systematic literature search for papers evaluating multimodal rehabilitation was conducted. The PubMed and EBSCO databases were searched from 1995 to 2015. Two or three researchers independently read each paper, performed a quality assessment and coded meanings of gender using qualitative content analysis.
Results: Twenty-seven papers were included in the review. Gender was used very differently in the MMR studies investigated but primarily it referred to factual differences between men and women. Only one paper provided a definition of the concept of gender and how it had been used in that study. In the content analysis, the meaning of gender formed three categories: "Gender as a factual difference", "The man is the ideal" and "Gender as a result of social role expectations".
Conclusions: The meaning of the concept of gender in multimodal rehabilitation is undefined and needs to be developed further. The way the concept is used should be defined in the design and evaluation of multimodal rehabilitation in future studies.
Implications for rehabilitation
Healthcare professionals should reflect on gender relations in encounters with patients, selection of patients into rehabilitation programs and design of programs. In rehabilitation for chronic pain the patients' social circumstances and cultural context should be given the same consideration as biological sex and pain symptoms.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2016. Vol. 38, no 23, p. 2255-2270
Keywords [en]
Gender, musculoskeletal, pain, review
National Category
Gender Studies General Practice
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-114094DOI: 10.3109/09638288.2015.1127435ISI: 000381937400001PubMedID: 26730507Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-84953312546OAI: oai:DiVA.org:umu-114094DiVA, id: diva2:893638
2016-01-132016-01-132023-03-23Bibliographically approved